Assassin's Apprentice

"No letters as yet? No ciphering. Bagrash! What's the old man thinking? Well, I shall see that remedied swiftly. You've your father's brow, boy, and just his way of wrinkling it. Has anyone ever told you that before? Ah, there you are, Slink, you rascal! What mischief have you been up to now?"

A brown weasel appeared from behind a tapestry, and we were introduced to one another. Chade let me feed Slink quail eggs from a bowl on the table, and laughed when the little beast followed me about begging for more. He gave me a copper bracelet that I found under the table, warning that it might make my wrist green, and cautioning that if anyone asked me about it, I should say I had found it behind the stables.

At some time we stopped for honey cakes and hot spiced wine. We sat together at a low table on some rugs before the fireplace, and I watched the firelight dancing over his scarred face and wondered why it had seemed so frightening. He noticed me watching him, and his face contorted in a smile. "Seems familiar, doesn't it, boy? My face, I mean."

It didn't. I had been staring at the grotesque scars on the pasty white skin. I had no idea what he meant. I stared at him questioningly, trying to figure it out.

"Don't trouble yourself about it, boy. It leaves its tracks on all of us, and sooner or later you'll get the tumble of it. But now, well ..." He rose, stretching, so that his cassock bared his skinny white calves. "Now it's mostly later. Or earlier, depending on which end of the day you fancy most. Time you headed back to your bed. Now. You'll remember that this is all a very dark secret, won't you? Not just me and this room, but the whole thing, waking up at night and lessons in how to kill people, and all of it."

"I'll remember," I told him, and then, sensing that it would mean something to him, I added, "You have my word."

He chuckled, and then nodded almost sadly. I changed back into my night robe, and he saw me down the steps. He held his glowing light by my bed as I clambered in, and then smoothed the blankets over me as no one had done since I'd left Burrich's chambers. I think I was asleep before he had even departed from my bedside.

Brant was sent to wake me the next morning, so late was I in arising. I came awake groggy, my head pounding painfully. But as soon as he left, I sprang from my bed and raced to the corner of my room. Cold stone met my hands as I pushed against the wall there, and no crack in mortar or stone gave any sign of the secret door I felt sure must be there. Never for one instant did I think Chade had been a dream, and even if I had, there remained the simple copper bracelet on my wrist to prove he wasn't.

I dressed hurriedly and passed through the kitchens for a slab of bread and cheese that I was still eating when I got to the stables. Burrich was out of sorts with my tardiness and found fault with every aspect of my horsemanship and stable tasks. I remember well how he berated me. "Don't think that because you've a room up in the castle and a crest on your jerkin that you can turn into some sprawl about rogue who snores in his bed until all hours and then only rises to fluff at his hair. I'll not have it. Bastard you may be, but you're Chivalry's bastard, and I'll make you a man he'll be proud of."

I paused, the grooming brushes still in my hands. "You mean Regal, don't you?"

My unwonted question startled him. "What?"

"When you talk about rogues who stay in bed all morning and do nothing except fuss about hair and garments, you mean how Regal is."

Burrich opened his mouth and then shut it. His wind reddened cheeks grew redder. "Neither you nor I," he muttered at last, "are in a position to criticize any of the Princes. I meant only as a general rule, that sleeping the morning away ill befits a man, and even less so a boy."

"And never a prince." I said this, and then stopped, to wonder where the thought had come from.